Blind Eyes
by EyeoftheAuthoress
Summary: A handicapped Yaut'ja grows up on Earth, not knowing who or what she is, until she accidentally confronts a member of her species as he tries to kill her human family.
1. Prequel: A Living Experiment

_Author's Note: Hello fellow Preddie/Yaut'ja lovers! ^^ I hope all of you like reading (and waiting a bit,) because this FF is vast and still growing. :D I realize there is a similar story of a Yaut'ja who grows up on Earth, but I assure you, mine is substantially different. I am not copying them or taking credit for the idea in any way. :)_

_There are some subtitles throughout the fic, so if you read one chapter and skip another, things may be confusing. :) I also apologize for the lack of dividers in earlier postings. My original ones didn't survive the upload. -_- _

_So I hope you like this original Alien/Predator fanfiction! Enjoy! :3_

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Prequel: A Living Experiment

_Falling..._

_She couldn't stop it. Panels and pressure valves were shot to hell._

Too fast... Oh please Paya, don't let her die!

_She fought the pull of the planet below as hard as she could. The unseen foe behind her had paralyzed her engines._Damn them!

_She was a fugitive. Only for being the best mother she could be. Her helpless daughter lie in a gyro crib, almost oblivious to the tremors in the dying craft._

_The foreign world shoved its ever growing ground closer and closer to the ship. The mother was jarred back from the controls as the deepest layers of atmosphere hit the shieldless hull. There was no controlling the ship now. The gravity was too strong._

_In the last seconds before impact, she grabbed her daughter and held her close..._

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><p>Dr. Matthew Okinaw could barely stay awake in the rocking three-wheel ATV as it skirted the Everglades. He felt like he was in one of those curious people in an old extraterrestrial movie. Though he would have gladly deferred the responsibility of checking it out to someone else. He had only gotten two hours of sleep when the order came: "Unknown craft has crash-landed in your jurisdiction. Orders are to analyze and determine if anything has survived."<p>

He didn't like being so far from HQ, but it was what his company had dealt him, so he took it. Matt would've been a lot more excited at this sudden incident if it were in the morning. But he had to laugh at himself. What twenty-four year old astrobiologist went to sleep at 9:00 P.M.? It was 2020 for crying out loud.

Common sense, he answered himself. He'd never admit it, but he was a genius. The most important thing to his intellect was sleep.

The ATV came to a halt and Matt slid out tiredly and rubbed his eyes with one hand. In the dark, wet swamp nearby, a mess of mangled still smoking trees blocked his view from the crash.

One of the officials who had gotten there before him jogged up, handing him a folding touch screen with all the latest information. Matt took a moment to read it... Then his droopy eyes finally widened.

He jogged to the crash area, nearly getting stuck in a few hidden muck holes on the way. Approaching the edge of the displaced earth, Matt looked down at the craft. The information was right. This was exactly what he was hoping to find. He descended the rest of the way to the ship and found an opening where everyone was gathered. One of the hands looked up when Matt approached and informed him that they had had orders not to enter the craft until he'd arrived. The radiologist assured him that there wasn't anything imminently dangerous in the craft. The men stood aside for him to take the first step into the ship.

It was at a 70 degree angle and Matt had to hold onto the sides of the very large hallway to keep from sliding down. The inside was completely destroyed, power lines and technology beyond repair. Matt clipped his HHC to his chest pocket and started recording, prattling off documentation as best as he could. It was a momentous find nonetheless.

He neared what looked like the first door of the high ceilinged ship. A thin glowing stream was slowly seeping out from under it. Angling himself past a few fallen pieces of metal, he tried to push it. He realized that it slid instead and managed to heave it open. In the dark room, the young scientist saw a large, curled body jammed in the corner. The luminous blood coming from the individual was the only source of light.

Balanced on the door jam, Matt snapped to the person behind him. "Light," he said. He was immediately handed one and shined the light on the alien body. It looked to be dead but it was clutching something close to its chest. And whatever it was holding _squirmed_.

Matt carefully made his way over to the alien, reminding himself to keep his distance. He stopped four feet away and got a closer look.

Inside wasn't what he expected to see. True, he expected the species he'd studied in various reports, but not like this. From what he could tell, the individual looked... very feminine. He'd never heard of any incident of a female specimen. She had everything the other aliens were described to having. Four sharp mandibles, a long skull lined with black dreadlocks, and reptilian skin. Matt dared to inch a couple feet closer. Two of the alien's large, but slender hands rested on top of a small mass. He almost reached over to take a hand off, but it shot out, knocking him back a full yard and a half.

Stunned, Matt slid back down near the corner. Expecting to find the alien standing over him, he looked up to find the huge being trying to shrink farther into the corner. She was barely conscious and now Matt could see how bad she was wounded.

Matt surveyed the room and found a stream of the blood from the door to the wall adjacent to it. There were jagged instruments on that wall also coated in some blood as well. She had been hit in the back of the head and sliced in the lower part of her back. He was no med expert, but it looked irreparable. She was mumbling a string of words in her harsh sounding language.

Matt attempted to calm her down. Against his better judgement, he reached out for her arm and gently tried to put it down. "It's all right, w-we won't hurt you. Try not to move."

She forced her eyes open and stopped resisting. Her gaze was unfocused, dazed. Matt called a medical team down, even though he knew they wouldn't be able to help her. They knew nothing about her race in the biological sense.

Looking back down at the alien, Matt finally saw what she was holding. It was an infant. It looked unharmed for the most part to him. She must have been its mother.

Matt felt a pang of pity for her, but it was short-lived when the dying alien handed her baby to the only person she could. He stared at the now growling little thing in his arms and back at the mother with a "you can't be serious" look. This definitely felt like an old extraterrestrial movie.

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><p>Ten hours later in San Francisco, the head of the Weyland-Yutani corporation, Aden Rabindinath, was positively animated. Matt had never seen him this riled up. The twig thin Indian yammered off the advantages of having an alien ship in their possession. Matt only half paid attention. He agreed with what most of the CEO was saying, but Matt's mind was on that interaction he'd had with the alien mother. He wished someone else had been there for her last few moments. It wasn't that her death itself had bothered him... Well, it did, but it wasn't the point. He couldn't shake the feeling that she had entrusted her infant to him. He couldn't do it, of course. He had no experience with otherworldly babies. He didn't even have experience with <em>human<em>babies.

The others in the board room agreed vigorously with the CEO. Even the staunch liaison from Tokyo was in agreement. He also assured them all that the American government didn't know any specifics about the crash, believing it to be a malfunctioned private jet. Measures had also been taken to cover all the loose ends of the incident, such as eyewitnesses, airlines, etc. When Aden started wrapping up the meeting, Matt brought up what he wished he wouldn't have. "What about the infant, sir?"

Aden looked up pleasantly, not even hesitating. "Experiment on it, of course. You'll carry it out, I trust." It wasn't a suggestion or even a question.

"Why me?" replied the astrobiologist.

"You, of the entire group of Weyland-Yutani scientists know the most about this race. You're the best one for the job." Aden straightened up his papers and smiled at Matt on his way to the door. "We look forward to your reports on its internal system. We may even be able to add its best characteristics to the new genetic manipulation companies popping up all over the place."

"Begging your pardon, Mr. Rabindinath, but are you expecting a dissection? Of a living individual?"

The CEO laughed lightly, standing in front of the door. He turned to face Matt again. "Yes, Dr. Okinaw, that's exactly what we expect."

Matt frowned at his absolute lack of feeling toward life. He could understand the man's reasoning. This race had been recorded as vicious, bloodthirsty hunters that made trophies of people in the vilest ways. But this was still a _sentient_life. "I'm sorry, I can't oversee that kind of experimentation. I will conduct controlled tests and observation on the infant, but I will not kill it in order to learn how its mind works."

Aden raised a skinny black eyebrow at that statement. "Well, doctor, if you won't do so, that's completely fine with me. We'll just have to get someone who's willing."

Matt retorted, "But as you've said yourself, sir; I, of the entire group of Weyland-Yutani scientists know the most about this race... I'm the best one for the job. Maybe even the only one."

Aden didn't appreciate being dictated terms by a subordinate in front of his peers. His long silence made Matt brace himself for the worst.

* * *

><p>The infantile alien delicately picked up a few of the clear blocks. Matt and his team now knew that it was a she, she breathed a different type of oxygen mix, and had a very low metabolic rate. They had to figure out what she could consume, but she didn't seem to need it yet.<p>

Matt was going over the ship footage again in the lab room. The little alien was behind him in a controlled habitat, content to play with herself.

Matt had the volume low as he watched it. He was still shocked that the CEO had allowed Matt to persuade him like that. He hadn't done it only because it was wrong morally to him to waste an innocent life, but also because he felt responsible for the infant. He kept shoving it out of his reasoning. It came back anyway.

The recording replayed the mother handing the infant to him. She was having a hard time breathing and was starting to fade. She placed a hand on her daughter one more time. Looking at Matt with glazed eyes, she uttered one phrase to him. "Mahhlee-dehhknaah."

Matt had shaken his head, not knowing what she meant. "What?"

She looked frustrated, tapped her infant weakly, then touched her own eyelids. "Mali'dekna," she said clearing her slur with some effort.

Matt nodded, still not knowing what she meant, and repeated the phrase. "Mali...dekna."

The mother placed her hand on his shoulder, squeezing it firmly. Matt didn't know what that meant in her culture, but it seemed like a gesture of trust. She closed her eyes for the last time and her grasp on his shoulder slackened.

Matt stopped the recording. Why had she touched her eyes? Swiveling his chair around to face the infant, he watched her. His first suspicion had been that she was blind.

She had set the transparent blocks in a pyramid. Matt would have fallen over if he saw a human infant do that. It did amaze him anyway. She could obviously see, but not in the way he thought. Her species could only see in the infrared without help. She shouldn't have been able to see those transparent blocks at all. They were the same temperature as the floor. Yet she could stack them-and in a three dimensional pattern. What _did_she see? he asked silently.

Leaning on his elbows, he formulated a theory. What if she _couldn't_see in the infrared? Like the rest of her species. He wished she could communicate so be could more accurately test his theory. But that would have to wait.

Standing, he walked to the chair in front of her sterile containment box. He leaned his forearms on the back of the chair and rested his head. He was eye-level with her and very close to the barrier.

She was so quiet. The only time she'd made any noise was when she was handed to him by her mother. He wondered... Did she know her mother was dead? Or was this the demeanor of all infants in her species?

He lightly rapped the barrier with his finger, trying to get her attention. She looked up at him with large, deep orange eyes that Matt swore he saw gleaming with intelligence. She half crawled, half dragged her small body over to him. If she were human, Matt would've guessed she was five months old. He hadn't the slightest idea of how old she really was.

She clumsily sat in front of him and almost seemed to look at him expectantly, like she was waiting for him to take her out. He studied her miniaturized features. Her teeth and mandibles were still forming. Her "hair" had not yet broken the surface, giving her a very saurian appearance. Though, she reminded Matt of a frog with her color. _So different..._

He tapped his finger on the barrier again and she put both small yellow and green hands where he did.

He put his hand up to her two and sighed. He shouldn't be in charge of this. It was going to be too hard for him not to want to be a parent for her. But was that really such a bad thing? Who better than him?

Taking out his flip touch screen, he brought up the little aliens file. Under "designation", he wrote: _Mali'dekna_.


	2. Chapter 1: Approach

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_Authors Note: New Yaut'ja's POV and Matt's descendant._

_My apologies for the faulty math and the "i"s and "/i"s. This was intended to be posted on deviantART, where HTML coding is necessary. ^^; Those little odd end "i"s are just for italics if I've missed any. :)_

**_~Merty_**

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><p>Chapter 1: Approach<p>

_2109_

In the dead space between planetary systems, hardly any of the light from the local star made it there. The bright pinprick was almost indistinguishable from the vast number of stars. Dormant comets moved slowly at the solstice of their orbit around the star, dark and silent. Among them, one artificial body stood out. Just as silent as the comets, the lone ship coasted on autopilot, scanning the nearby system idly.

Inside the dim cockpit, a solitary Yaut'ja dozed in the captain's chair. Just as his head was starting to loll back, a low frequency alert went off and brought him to attention. He tapped a few keys lightly and the nearest star streamed to the visor screen dangling in front of him.

Clicking in a few commands, he brought the focus of the representation out to the alert source. On the third planet, his ships scanners were picking something up. Something that shouldn't have been there at all.

His black eyes widening, the pilot tapped a command and he began sending a message back to his superiors. A few seconds later he received a question as to the extent of the damage.

He replied with exactly what he saw on his scan. More than enough.

The reply confirmed his information and it listed off the standard procedures he needed to take.

Closing down the connection, the lone Yaut'ja changed his small ship's course.

* * *

><p>Prof. Jack Okinaw stood in the main observatory, staring in rapt anticipation at the holographic map of the solar system with several other scientists. "Current speed?" he asked the computer.<p>

"186,000 miles per second," replied the smooth electronic voice aloud for everyone to hear.

A collective murmur echoed around the room. It was impossible, and Jack agreed with them. But there it was. A foreign object that nobody had ever seen the like of before was shooting through the solar system at the literal speed of light. They'd first spotted it coming through the Oort Belt from the unmanned sensors on Sedena at around 8:09 am. Word had spread through the entire research complex. It was blasting through the system, bound for Jupiter.

One of the older scientists next to Jack was murmuring to his PHC furvently, gathering all the sensor information they'd retrieved so far. There wasn't much because of the object's sheer speed. They couldn't get a solid fix on it.

"Allen, you've got to give me something here. I'm a biologist, not a physicist," pleaded Jack.

The older man glanced at Jack. "I...I haven't the foggiest idea, mate. It can't be a comet, it isn't leaving a trail of particles as far as we can see. And there aren't any records of any asteroid ever reaching this speed."

An alert sounded on the overhead projection. "Warning: foreign object now entering Jupiter gravity."

Everyone looked up again, watching the white representation as it neared the gas planet. Jack absently wished he could be there in person. It would be quite the sight to see the impact.

But such a thing never happened. Before the object even reached the planet's moons, it changed its trajectory and used Jupiter's gravity to slingshot it straight for ithem./i. Straight for Earth.

Everyone was silent. Jack was stunned as they were. That was no asteroid or comet. "...Bridget... Have you gotten the mass of it yet?" he said, his solitary voice sounding loud in the quiet room. When he got no answer, Jack turned toward the sensor station. "Weismann!"

The woman sitting at the desk snapped her gaze to him. "Pardon?"

"Have you determined the mass yet?" he repeated.

Looking down at her station, she brought up her estimates for everyone. The object was roughly the size of an old-fashion space shuttle, but as Bridget's data clarified, it was still difficult to get an exact measurement. With any luck, it would incinerate itself in the Earth's atmosphere quickly. Then again, nothing that fast had ever hit the planet before.

Jack did a simple calculation and determined that it would reach them within a few hours...

The ever present Weyland-Yutani board member Luc Kitz came up to Jack from his spot in the back of the room. "Okinaw... Do I need to send this on?"

Jack didn't answer, hesitating. The official was thinking the same thing Jack had been suspecting. Was this what he'd been hoping and praying would happen? Or was it what Kitz was hoping and praying _wouldn't_ happen? He desperately wished it would be the former.


	3. Chapter 2: Normal Day, Irregular life

_Author's Note: Previous baby Yaut'ja's POV, now grown up. :)_

_I realize this chapter is a bit _odd_, but in a society of intermixed genetically enhanced humans and normal humans, our Yaut'ja girl would easily escape modern attention as a genetically manipulated person "gone wrong." XD Hope that helps understand this chap a bit more._

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2. Normal Day, Irregular Life

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><p>They were looking again. Staring without reservation. Mocking her with their eyes.<p>

Mali'dekna snarled quietly under her mask. It was just a breath apparatus. It hid her "grotesque" face, but it made her look ridiculous.

It really was a futile attempt. Her distinctive bony crest, fleshy 'dreads', 7'1" height, near red amber eyes, and diverse skin already set her apart from all in the room. It was a constant battle with irritation. She was so, so very different than them.

She heard a snicker from behind her. She didn't even bother listening in, having no doubt it was about her again.

She steadied her breathing in an attempt to not become angry. Her adoptive cousin said time and time again that anger had no place in the civilized world. She couldn't disagree with him more. The only time she felt..._right_ was when she was doing or feeling something contrary to the norm of people's expectations. Such as being underhanded, brutal, or authoritative. Especially underhanded. It was what she was best at. But in modern society, she was expected to act a certain way. Her cousin said it was the only way she could be accepted.

Trying not to break the little chair she was crammed into, Mali felt out of place. She hated-really _hated_ these classes. She already knew all of it. Everything was already there. Her parental guardians, as she called them, had insisted she attend them anyway before they passed away 15 years ago. Said it was beneficial to her future, if not just socially. The only reason her cousin still had her go was to honor their wishes of her having a normal life.

The only problem was that she'd never have anything of the sort. She did have a scientific "creator" she had gone to see in her earlier years that told her countless times that she was the epitome of the GenExes, people that had undergone genetic experimentation. Even in those early years, she knew he was speaking in half truths. He'd also explained that her advanced knowledge must have been a result of previous experimentation before he got to her. _What a crock. If I was supposed to be the most perfected GenEx, why can't I breathe ordinary air for more than 12 minutes?_ Genetic scientists couldn't have made that big of a mistake.

The flat, interactive hologram at the front of the room must have noticed her spacing and brought her out of her thoughts. "Mali'dekna."

She looked up at the projection.

"I assume you've heard everything I've said?" it said with a slight irritation in its voice.

She nodded to it.

The artificial mass of lights and colors flashed a shade of green and continued its lecture on the 21st century, comparing the pioneer technology of the earlier decades to what they had now in present times.

She quickly spaced off again. This was a waste of time. She reached down to her gravi-screen. Spreading out the four floating projectors across her lap, she tapped the top right one and activated it. Her fingers slid across the holographic projected info nimbly, aided by her long black claws. Bypassing all the ordinary places students could interact with, she hacked the instruction database and found her assignments for the day. Usually she waited until the end of this first class to retrieve it all, but she wanted to finish everything while she was there, not after.

One of the students next to her noticed what she was doing. She caught a whiff of his scent with her mask's sensor as he leaned closer. He began to reek of excitement. He was either thinking of tattling on her or he thought he could take advantage of her with what he saw. It turned out to be the former, as she saw him beginning to lift his hand.

Her own hand snatched his wrist before he could even get above his shoulder level. He looked up at her in surprise and fright. He clearly didn't think she had noticed.

Mali gave him a narrow glare and hissed a warning just loud enough for him to hear it.

He barely nodded, his eyes as wide as saucers. She let go of his small wrist and resumed her work, the air next to her now saturated with fear.

Before she had come to these classes, she had been known for her patience. It wasn't as though she enjoyed scaring people, but recently she'd been making sure they thought twice before they did something stupid. That way they would stay intact and she wouldn't lose her temper. Her cousin did say she needed to control her anger. It was a good system.

The only thing it didn't guarantee ridding was that whispering behind her back. That she couldn't do anything about. She could just imagine herself tossing around the next person who crossed her, but suspension was not acceptable, not even to her. Mali may've thought that classes were unnecessary, but she wasn't totally rebellious... Not entirely.

The rest of the day progressed like it normally did. She had finished all of her work before lunch and decided to work on the rest of the week's assignments during the last classes. At least this was the final year she would be in this God-awful instruction. It was just too easy, boring, and a waste of time.

The only thing she would miss would be the astronomy and biology classes. She had plans to work at the space center as soon as she'd graduated. Her cousin's son, who she likened unto a little brother, told her it was just wishful thinking, but she had no doubt in her mind she would get in. No doubt at all. Her cousin was the key, as he worked in a large corporation itself. He was one of the only humans who accepted her for who and what she was. He was astrobiologist and had plans to work on Io once he obtained permission. Mali planned to be right there with him when he did.

Before she knew it, she was outside the building on the expansive terrace, waiting for the shuttle. Everyone was clustered in the middle of the terrace, avoiding the edges because of the long 400 story drop. Mali was standing right on the edge, enjoying the view.

The instruction center sat on one of many massive buildings in Miami, not a megapolis like Atlanta or Orlando, but still a very good sized city. At the moment, Mali was shivering in the 65° F weather. The only time she felt really comfortable was when the temperature was over 100° F. Then everything felt better. She could move quicker, think even faster, and breathe easier (to a certain extent.)

The shuttle glided to the platform and everyone shuffled on. She reluctantly did so as well, leaning down considerably to fit inside. Her very long dreads fell around her face, obstructing the view around her.

The shuttle moved away from the terrace and glided down a few dozen levels to the next building where most of the cities denizens parked for either instruction or work. Right before it landed, Mali noticed two people next to her making out in plain sight. She rolled her eyes and looked the other way. It was purely disgusting to her to have to see such insecure nativity.

When the bus came to a stop on the top of the shorter building, everyone filed out. Mali strode over to where she'd parked, having been lucky enough to find a spot on the top level. Putting on her wind goggles, she swung her leg over her aircycle and started it up. It was one of the largest models available, but to her, it was just large enough not to feel like a minibike. Lifting off the roof, she gunned her cycle and shot away, heading to the edge of the massive forest of buildings.

Hundreds of feet below, the Atlantic ocean spread out beneath her, its magnificent, clean blue expanse pleasing to the eye. She never got tired of seeing it every day. She steered her cycle down the coast. Today she felt like taking the scenic route.

Over the next 30 minutes, she mused more about her cousin. He was possibly the fussiest man she had ever encountered. He never let her leave the house without checking her breath mask personally for a sufficient supply and asking every little detail about every little irregularity she had been feeling. She knew he cared quite a bit, but after 15 years under his care, it had grown old.

He had also been the one who'd "taken over" her genetic check ups. He wasn't the best geneticist, but he always seemed to know what he was doing at any given point. More often then not, he kept details to himself though. Mali was glad he did, as she only wanted to know if she was going to live or die.

But recently, she had been getting curious about all her irregularities, doing extensive research on GenExes all over the world. Absolutely none had the same strange characteristics she did. Most cases where those who tried to get the advantageous genetics of a certain animal and they ended up with different skin color, feathers, or fur as a side effect. Was it the GenEx scientists' intention to make her look so different? To make her function_ so_ different? What were they thinking when they incorporated a crustacean head, phosphor based green blood, and a Samoan height? She understood their main intention was to basically increase her strength, intelligence, and agility; but she could NOT get past her initial suspicions. They were all questions she now planned to ask my cousin. She couldn't possibly be another GenEx. She could _not_.

She sighed to herself. She was probably just thinking too hard. But the suspicion remained no matter what. She never asked to be this way.


	4. Chapter 3: Next Best Thing

_Authors Note: Soon-to-be-named Yaut'ja's POV along with Jack's._

_This chapter has some strong language, just so you know. Not for the faint of heart. ;)_

_Alien/Predator Elements and language copyright to 20th Century Fox._

_(I realize I should post that more often, but oh well. XD)_

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3. The Next Best Thing

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><p>The Yaut'ja brought the command chair computer back in front of his face once the autopilot reached its destination. He set his missile bay to target the central hubs of Ooman activity. This planet was almost beyond repair... Someone had been very careless.<p>

He needed to find which area carried the lost technology. Sliding his encompassing view of the world around in his visor, he found what he was looking for. The power signature was very dim, but clearly Yaut'jan.

Next he sent a encrypted message that jumped off the correct satellites. They were primitive, but still recognized the imperceptibly sophisticated signal. Just barely. 2-D information scrolled fast down his visor. He read all of it in a matter of seconds, learning all he needed to know. It was a ship that had crashed 89 Ooman years prior in the north-western hemisphere. They had reverse engineered hundreds of similar, if not identical forms of technology. They were incorporated in their attack forces, space conveyances, and power sources. He also saw a second notation that mentioned a piece of Yaut'jan weaponry that had been in Ooman possession for even longer. A modified plasma rifle. _What a mess._

But it was his job. Cleaning up messes careless Yaut'ja left behind.

He set the targeting system to the ship's and the weapon's separate locations, letting the auto-functions do the rest. He retracted the visor and stood from his chair.

As he walked down the main corridor of his ship, he could feel the firing of missiles in the nearby bay. Within a few seconds, they would take care of the main facilities that housed the stolen technology.

He reached the back room of his ship and opened his standard issue weapon cache. Once the big problems were out of the way, he would start on the smaller.

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><p>Luc Kitz started throwing a fit when the reality of both HQs destruction hit him. Jack also felt the imminent danger, but nowhere as severe as Kitz did. Jack could only imagine what was going on all over the world. Unknowing citizens would be automatically thinking terrorist attacks. He could just imagine the known terrorist factions taking credit for it.<p>

The board member, perhaps one of the only left, tried to call the CEO, then the next member, then the next until he ran out of numbers to call. He was now without directive. Cussing desperately at no one in particular, he ran his hands over his bald head.

Jack was surprised that Kitz lost his cool so easily. Everyone was used to the man being stoic, always in the background. It shocked all to see him viscerally break down.

"Luc," said Jack after a few more profanities.

The man glanced at him.

"Calm down, you aren't helping anything."

Kitz seemed to grind his teeth so hard Jack nearly heard it. "Do you realize the significance of what just happened, Okinaw? They've just destroyed our most sophisticated headquarters! They took Weyland's best form of global defense!"

"W.Y. isn't the soul defense. There are plenty of other-"

"All of them have ties to us! Those aliens are declaring_ fucking war_! Hell, it isn't even war if we can't fight back!"

"Kitz! I said calm down," Jack enunciated, raising his voice. He lowered his tone when Kitz's breathing was no longer audible then looked to his team of watching technicians. "Wiesmann, do you still have a fix on its location?"

She didn't even look at her screen, clearly cognizant of it already. "I lost it once it activated its cloak halfway through the atmosphere. Its trajectory suggested that it may have been heading for the Eastern hemisphere."

"Can you boost the signal at all?"

"Sorry, doctor, we aren't exactly NASA anymore," she said with a bitter tone to her voice.

One of the other technicians stood from his station, his face pure panic. "Sir!"

Everyone in the room looked at him.

"Something was in the global network... The entire database was deleted within six imicroseconds/i."

The room seemed stuck in one point of time. Jack felt sick to his stomach. Everything they had ever collected on extraterrestrial activity, everything he'd ever worked for. Gone.

"There... there's nothing left?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper.

The tech shook his head.

"What about the back-up storage?"

"...No, sir."

Now Jack felt like throwing one of those fits Kitz did. This was the real thing. It was exactly what Weyland-Yutani had hoped wouldn't happen.

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><p>Blades cocked rustily, laser nets barely crackled to life. The Yaut'ja groaned at the "arsenal" in front of him. Standard issue cleansing weapons. More like handing him a bone and a chisel.<p>

The Yaut'ja wasn't as finicky as he used to be when it came to weapons, save corroded noisy ones. But he would get the job done to the best of his ability, hyper-active plasma cannons or not.

He slid on his last armor plates and headed for the cargo bay. The reader controls sensed his approach, rising out of the floor as he stopped before the bay doors. The old reader showed him the ships position then asked for his name before he could leave the ship. He said aloud, "Thwei'r'ka."

After a warbling grind, the reader gave the command for the bay doors to open. Thwei'r'ka looked at the dark building top. A couple heat signatures were far below. For a moment, the Yaut'ja was tempted to deviate from his task, but he quickly shook off the allure and leaped down to the building. The data he'd collected told him there were several sites where information was hidden apart from the main network. Thwei'r'ka classified the storage and individuals as too small a number to destroy the entire building for. So he needed go in himself.


	5. Chapter 4: Rejected

_A/N: Mali POV. It was a little hard predicting/writing how a female Yaut'ja would react to sadness and disappointment if she only knew how to express it as a human. I'm not too happy with how it turned out, but wth. I may need an active opinion on some chapters further down the road, but for now, I hope you enjoy this next chap! :)_

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4. Rejected

* * *

><p>An alert flashed up on her goggle screen. <em>Damn, that was fast,<em> she thought. She was approaching Key West already.

Shifting gears to descend, she watched the tropical looking islands come into view. This place had been her home as long as she could remember. It was warm all year round and wet. She loved it.

It hadn't changed much in the last century as far as she knew. It hadn't adopted the common one hundred story plus buildings, staying relatively untouched by most of the world.

As she kept descending, her cycle soared over the tourist attractions and restaurants she saw every day. They stopped abruptly as the shallow ocean opened out for a few more seconds. Circling the nearest island she called home, she slowed down. No longer a residential area, a broad, sophisticated research center with a couple staff houses took up the small Sunset Key.

Mali came down the last few dozen feet for a landing on the research center roof. Shutting down the cycle, she unclipped her goggles and left them on the handlebars. She walked over to the lift near the edge of the roof and stood still on the flat surface. Tapping a remote on her belt, the lift descended to next floor. She stepped off once it stopped and tapped the remote again. It slid back up and sealed off, now air tight.

The floor she was on now wasn't very big-bare and leading into another corridor. It was very warm, and equalizing to the air she could breathe without difficulty. Now feeling much more comfortable, she walked down the dim corridor, unhooking her mask as she made her way to the center labs. She yawned and stretched out her mandibles, stiff from being stationary all day.

After going down a few halls, she entered the main lab where her cousin ordinarily worked when he was home. Mali passed several coolant tubes with specimens that other scientists were studying. Near the main desk, her elder cousin was hunched over one of the enzyme projection tables, shifting data from screen to screen then referring to an interactive star chart on the ceiling.

She came up behind him and leaned over his back, watching him work. He sensed her standing behind him and stopped tapping keys. "You're home earlier than usual. Nothing I should worry about, I hope."

Her upper mandibles angled up in a smile. "It depends on what kind of mood you're in, Jack," she replied.

He swiveled his chair around to face her. In his early forties, Jack's onyx hair was just starting to grey, giving him that fatherly, intelligent look that fit nicely with his scientific personality. He also had a breath mask in place, as did everyone who worked there. The type of air she breathed was coincidentally very conducive to organic preservation. She'd off-handedly wondered that maybe that was why she breathed the stuff, having grown up in the environment.

He brought her down into a warm hug. "How are you, sweetheart?"

She returned the embrace tightly-well, the human equivalent of tightly-and teased, "As good as can be expected after slumming it with the purebreds." She was again so grateful that her cousin didn't care about and wasn't scared by her face.

Jack released her and gave her a once over with his infamous evaluation look. "Anything to report?"

She rolled my eyes again and plopped in the chair closest to his. "Same as always. Cold, cold, and more cold."

He turned back to his work, a smile near visible under his partly translucent mask. "I'll come downstairs with you in a bit; I've got a couple more things to do."

She propped her taloned, sandaled feet on a dormant panel and waited for him to finish. Glancing at her cousin, she promised herself that she would talk to him later about the now very prominent questions on her mind.

One of Jack's younger assistants, Carl Mao, jogged into the room and held up an info chip to his boss. "Here it is, sir. The last scans from number 9."

Jack turned to take it from him. "Thanks, Carl."

The Asian rounded his boss's chair as Jack tossed the chip into the anti-gravity field in from of him. Giving Mali a quick look that caught her attention, Carl turned away and pulled out his own portable screen, concentrating intently on it as he left the room.

Narrowing her eyes, she filed the look away. What was that for?

Without looking at her, Jack spoke up. "Did I tell you the call came today?"

Her gaze snapped to him and she took her feet off the panel.

He expanded the number 9 data sample in front of him, a grim look on his face. "Looks like we won't be going to Io this time around."

Her heart sank to her feet. A superlative was out of her moth before she knew it.

Jack finally looked her way, a disapproving glare in his eyes.

"Why?" she said louder than she intended. _We'd worked so hard to get on that flight!_

He sighed heavily, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "They already had a big enough staff, and regrettably informed me that two more passengers couldn't be accommodated."

She felt like the space administration had literally ripped her hopes out, and she was only hearing this second handedly. Standing up, she stared at Jack. "I would've ridden in the damned cargo bay in zero-G. _That_ was what they told you?"

He looked very pained, hesitating to answer. Even in her agitated state, she keyed in on the unsaid words he wouldn't say. "Don't tell me, let me guess..." she said with a very dark undertone.

Jack powered down his desk and stood too. "I'm so sorry, Mali."

Looking away from him, she could feel her face twisting into a contorted outrage. They weren't letting her go because she was a GenEx! She had been discriminated against her entire life. How could she have been so naive to think that the space administration was above prejudice? Squeezing her eyes shut, her fingers tensed so much they began to pale and her mandibles spread out wide. She now had the terrible urge to tear something to pieces.

Jack had seen she get like this only a few times before. He reached up and grabbed her shoulders. "Mali. Mali, look at me," he said sternly but softly.

Incredibly frustrated, she clenched her inner jaw and looked down at him. All her interests had been centered around this trip. If she could cry, she would've been at that moment.

"Screw them, all right?" he said. "You'll get into space. If not through the center, then we'll find another way. There is nothing that can stop you from doing what you want to do. Don't let them tell you otherwise."

She could feel her heart pounding from the livid rage she felt. Jack was right, they couldn't and wouldn't be rid of her that easy. But at the moment, all she wanted to do was fly to wherever the director of the space program was and have him feel what it was like to have his heart ripped clean out of his chest. She shook her head. "...It's not fair, Jack."

Hanging his head for a second, Jack nodded solemnly as he patted her shoulders. "No...no, it isn't."

* * *

><p>Jack jogged through the halls and took elevators down to the lowest levels of the complex. He rubbed the bridge of his nose when he was able to take his mask off again. God, he hated doing that to her. But he would rather her be in the dark than know about what was happening yet. If worst came to worst, he would tell her to get out of the immediate area, no questions asked.<p>

The rest of the complexes Weyland-Yutani owned were being picked apart so fast. The research center they were in at the moment wasn't easily found and not many knew about it. But they studied alien DNA that had been collected over the entire company's history. It was important enough to be catalogued in the now non-existent database. He naively hoped that the alien would ignore them. But it had even found the Sri Lanka branch. It was even lesser in the corporation than Jack's.

The astrobiologist wanted and feared for Mali'dekna to know about her true heritage. He loved her like a daughter. How would she take something like this?

She would be more determined than ever to get into space. She had a thirst for knowledge that was truly inhuman, and he wouldn't put stealing a space craft past her.

The expression she made when he lied right to her face kept reappearing in his mind. The only time he remembered her getting remotely upset was when he tried to talk to her about her parents', his elderly cousins' deaths. She had only been aware of herself for three years.

Jack walked into the main comm-lab. It was chaos, just as he left it. He caught up with what had happened while he was gone. Poor Allen was trying to keep up with all the reports coming in. And they were limited at that. Sunset Key center was a think tank but a scientific based one. Everyone did the best they could, watching satellite feeds and monitoring any alarm frequency they knew of. With Kitz's help, they were able to listen in on most federal communications. There was incessant prattle from the executive branch on retaliation to the blatant attacks. But it was obvious they didn't know what to do. There were even a couple of CIA channels Kitz knew how to hack. Not even the old standby agency knew what was going on.

Jack asked the room if there had been any visual conformation on the alien in their complexes. The answer was always no. The elusive light bending cloak was not readily visible on security cameras.

By now, the only piece of positive news was the aliens' path. It was consistently moving from East to West. They never knew what complex it would be, but it was still constant.

New reports came in again and a tech barked out that the UK base was done for. The last one on that side of the Atlantic.

They were next.


	6. Chapter 5: Small Game

_A/N: Calm before the storm. 83 This is my personal favorite chapter that I've written so far, mostly because of its simplicity and because of Zane. I based him pretty closely after my younger cousin, a very sweet little guy. ^^ Also, the character dialogue has some errors, but they're intentional. You don't hear "going to" as opposed to "gonna" in common vernacular, hence their usage. :) Hope y'all enjoy!_

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5. Small Game

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><p>He'd finished with the Eastern hemisphere quickly and efficiently. Thwei'r'ka was surprised how many hidden bases there had been. But it didn't impress him. He gained nothing from them. As a Cleanser, he never took trophies, neither was he permitted to take any. The more confusing they acted to indigenous that knew of the Yaut'ja race, the better Cleansers could do their job.<p>

His ship cruised through a mid-oceanic gale, unaffected by the wind sheers and weather. Looking over the last of the complexes he would need to dispatch, Thwei'r'ka saw there were much fewer locations in this hemisphere. Only a total of four. Two were in a very cold climate and the last in moderate zones. Deciding to get the chillier ones out of the way, he guided his craft to the North-Western continent.

* * *

><p>Mali twiddled with her lo mien later that evening, sitting in her cousin's apartment on the ground level of the research center. Still disappointed by the news, she didn't have much in the way of an appetite.<p>

Zane, her 12 year old little "brother", was scarfing down his Hunan chicken like hadn't eaten in days. In front of his eyes, he watching his favorite show on his personal media projector. An advertisement must have come on because he finally moved his head to look at her. "You gonna eat that?" he asked, pointing down to her glass plate full of noodles.

She glanced down at him and handed over her plate.

He stared at it. "I-I was just kidding."

She leaned her elbow on the side of the sofa and rested her face on her palm. "If you don't want it, I'll toss it back in the disposal," she responded quietly.

Noting the tone of her voice, he pushed a button on his headset, shutting the projection off. "You okay?"

She was glad her mask wasn't translucent like a normal edition. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Are you sure? 'Cause the last time I saw you reject food was when Jim Cabot died," he said, referring to the latest, greatest astronomer of recent years.

She smirked at him, patting the back of his head. "Don't worry about it." As far as she was concerned, the boy was her best friend. Like Jack, Zane had black hair, but it was wild, partially sun-bleached, and spiked. He spent a lot of time outside, rooting out birds' nests and basically trying to sneak up on anything that moved outside. Whenever she could, Mali would be out there with him. The mindless activity was the one thing she enjoyed besides astrobiology. And that activity had never sounded better than it did to her right then. She wanted to forget about having her spirit broken. "Do you want to go hunting on Christmas Tree Island?"

He had just taken a huge bite of her lo mien. With noodles dangling from his mouth, he said muffled, "What? Now?"

"No, tomorrow morning," she chuckled. While the prospect of hunting with nothing but her night vision was alluring, Zane would be completely blind and she didn't want him to get lost or fall.

"But... I have class tomorrow," he said after swallowing his large bite.

She nodded, giving him a "yeah, so?" look. "I know. Big sisters have precedent over such things."

He rolled his eyes. "They do not."

"You don't have a test or anything, do you?" she asked.

He studied the ceiling in thought, mischievous smile spreading across his face. "If I go with you... you've got to promise not to tell Dad."

She touched her chest in mock offense. "Oh, that hurts, Z! I thought you had more trust in me by now."

He looked at her in a fish-eyed glance, still smiling. "Okay, okay, I'll go."

She stood from her spot on the couch and mussed up his already unruly hair on her way to the stairs. "You have nothing to worry about. It's not like anybody will see you prowling around all alone with a GenEx."

"Oh, come on that's not fair! You know I don't care about that!" he protested, turning around in his seat. He really didn't, but she loved to tease him anyway.

"Don't forget your stun-caps," she said, ignoring his last comment.

"Mali, I don't! Really!"

"G'night, Zane," she replied, now halfway up the stairs.

* * *

><p>Zane was by his big sister's aircycle up on the roof before she even got there. He was cold in the chilly morning air, but he didn't care. It wasn't often that she asked him to go with her. It was always when <em>he<em> suggested it. So this morning, he was near ecstatic to be out at 7 o'clock, playing hooky. He rarely ever did it, only missing days if he was sick or on vacation. He felt terrible, but he was too excited to care about one absent day. He could always ask her to take it off his record... She was the one who could hack anything. But he immediately shook his mind away from that idea. He didn't want to lie about his classes.

Finally the lift descended then brought back up Mali'dekna. Even after knowing her his entire life, Zane still was shocked at how tall she was. She towered over everyone, even the basketball players at retro-games. He was reminded of the comment she made last night about him being embarrassed by her. He hoped she wasn't serious; he'd always felt cool having a GenEx as a sister and he wished she didn't go to high school in Miami. She was gone almost all the time. But since they didn't have any honor role classes in Key West, Miami was where she stayed.

Coming up to him, she chucked. "You're up early."

He hefted the strap that carried his stun capsules and put on his wind goggles. "I didn't want to sleep in."

She patted his head and mounted her aircycle. Strapping on her own goggles, she gestured to the space behind her.

Zane visibly cringed at the prospect of riding there. Was she trying to make him look like a girl, hanging onto the back?

She laughed loudly as if reading his mind. She slid far enough for him to sit in front of her. "I wouldn't do that to you, Z."

Relieved, Zane stepped up and swung his leg onto the massive cycle in front of her. Even with him there, Mali didn't have the slightest problem reaching all the controls. With a few adjustments, she started the silent vehicle. "Ready?"

"Yeah!" he replied, holding tightly to the middle of the handlebars.

She rose off the roof, did a 180 in mid-air, and shot away. Zane whooped, enjoying the thrill of the aircycle's power. Not yet old enough to drive one, he envied her for the sophisticated, maneuverable machine.

The ride was short-lived though, as Christmas Tree Island wasn't but a few hundred yards away from Sunset Key. Coming to a quiet landing on the east side beach, Mali shut down the engines and unclipped her goggles. Zane was the first to hop off. His eyes darted all over the place, searching for a ground bird, lizard, or possibly an otter. "So what are we looking for?" he said in a hushed voice.

Dismounting the bike, Mali took off her sandals and brought out her gravi-screen for a moment. "Do you remember when that tourist couple brought a seal here four years ago?"

_The local seal._ The thing was a nuisance; it got into people's trash all the time and had bitten a couple of kids that Zane knew. It was even speculated that it may've been a little rabid. "Yeah," Zane replied.

"Well... The harbor patrol just reported last weekend that they saw a seal resting on this island," she said, closing out her screen and putting it back in her pocket.

Zane's eyes widened in excitement. He didn't expect that.

"Let's do animal control a favor," she winked at him and started walking into the dense forest.

He followed behind her at a fast pace.

* * *

><p>An hour later, Zane was sweating in the morning heat. Mali and he had searched over half the island so far and were now making their way to the small river. The man-made forest was thick with towering Australian pines. As they got deeper, Zane tried to imitate the way his sister was walking. She never made a sound, even when she didn't need to be quiet. It was probably because she had an extra pair of toes halfway up her feet.<em> Lucky<em>, he thought to himself.

They reached the river and were making their way downstream. As they followed it, it gradually became wider. Coming through a dense cluster of trees, Mali stopped and swung out her hand in front of Zane. He went on alert and tried to see around her. Near the river delta right on the edge of the sea, there were a couple of smooth boulders. Sunning on top of one of the shorter ones was the seal. Goodly sized, it could've knocked Zane over if it got enough momentum.

Mali knelt down and whispered to him. "I'll go around and cut off his escape to sea, you go straight in and stun him. Okay?"

Zane nodded vigorously and Mali stepped off into the dense underbrush. Just as she did, the seal shifted in his direction. It was half awake, but still unaware of him. Panicking, Zane started after Mali, but once he pushed through the dense patch of reeds and trees, she had disappeared. _Oh man_, yelled Zane in his mind. _I hate it when she does that!_ Turning back to the seal, he followed the plan, even though it was much more likely he would be spotted now.

Trying to will the animal to sleep, Zane moved slow, never taking his eyes off it. He unclipped two of his stun-caps and stepped into the shallow water. It was still too far for him to throw the cap. Just a few more feet...

In the corner of his eye, he saw Mali appear out of the forest near the edge of the beach. She was now holding a net he hadn't known she brought, stalking toward the rock. Zane kept his measured pace until he was close enough to the seal. He raised his throwing arm, poised for her signal.

Now between the seal and the open water, Mali nodded to him.

He flung the cap at the seal. A short, non-lethal burst of energy detonated just to the left of the animal's face, stunning it. It let out a surprised bark and dizzily tried to retreat to the water. Mali was waiting for it and she bolted forward, catching the seal in her thick net.

Zane let out his second whoop of the day. "Yes!" He jogged through the river to the other side of the boulder. Mali was just starting to tie off the squirming bag. "That was perfect!" he exclaimed.

Mali swung the net over her shoulder and started back in the direction of her bike. Zane followed after retrieving his depleted stun-cap.


	7. Chapter 6: Every Last One

_A/N: Jack's and Mali's POV. Posting a day early. Don't worry, this isn't actually the last chapter. XD The reality of something dark approaching finally reaches Mali and Zane's attention._

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><p>6. Every Last One<p>

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"Damn it! We're cut off!" said Allen loud enough for Jack to hear across the room.

On the main monitor, the last light from from the Alaska New York City base faded out. Jack's team had been in constant contact with the NY people for the last hour. Within the last few minutes, the transmission cut off, as it did with every complex that had been attacked.

The air of the room had changed from exhausted to thick, genuine fear as the North American bases were disconnected. There were only two left: the Houston base and theirs. It was only a question of who would go first.

Jack felt now more than ever that he should send Mali and probably Zane as well out of the area. He couldn't get out of the comm. room for ten seconds. There were always new reports coming in. The Houston base now became their sole focus, as they likewise became Houston's. As far as all knew, the last two dwindling bases disregarded the use of weapons. It was a constant with all the previous alien attacks. They never attacked an individual without a manner of defense.

When Jack had put his personal firearm away, he tried not to ask himself why this instance made him think otherwise. It had been over 100 years since the last recorded alien occurrence. A species that ancient and advanced was not exempt from change. Who knew what advancements they'd made in a century?

He vaguely realized that he hadn't done much in the way of talking or reassuring his team. But the doctor wasn't a liar. He didn't know if everything was going to be all right. And he wasn't a leader by nature. Just a glorified astrobiologist with a doctorate, he was shell-shocked; and alien takeovers weren't his specialty. But the species was. How could they be studying this race for over a century and not have any defense against them? W.Y. had been so focused on expanding their off-world establishments that they never created any. Jack funnily enough remembered something his grand-uncle Matt told him. _We know more about these aliens than anyone else on the planet. Whenever they come back, we better be damn near ready for them._

What a disgrace that they hadn't. But he had had enough of cowering. Coming out of the fog he had been in for over 36 hours, Jack walked over to Allen. "What's Houston saying?"

The Australian looked wearily grave. "Standing by; they're attempting a make-shift electrified hydronet with the anti-matter converters they have. They think it might keep E.T. out or at least easier-"

"That's not going to work," interrupted Jack. He moved over to the next station in front of a tech and began sending info over. "The only way to beat these beings is to outwit them on a personal combat level. You can't block them; they're too smart for that."

"Well, how in the bloody hell are they going to resist something they can't see?" asked Kitz from behind him.

Without looking at Kitz, Jack relayed Houston his plan. "They were on the right track with the hydronet, but not in the same way. They've got to get the fire suppression system on." The doctor was aware that it was a stretch to assume the alien's cloak was still susceptible to moisture, but it was one of their only options.

After sending the information to Houston, Jack copied it up on the large display. He raised his voice for everyone to hear. "I want all of this implemented now! We're gonna set a trap."

The others in the room were visibly more reassured at his short but confident words. Yet they never got two steps away from their seats.

The perimeter alarm went off.

It was there.

* * *

><p>"So... We don't get paid for bringing it in do we?" said Zane to the zoo hand behind the cage barrier. He had a cat-like grin on his face that looked like he was having pure fun, but Mali knew he was dead serious. He wanted compensation. <em>12 years old and already a business man<em>, she thought, amused.

The zoo hand really didn't know from the look on her feathered face. Mali knew her as Key West's only other female GenEx, but the much more human girl was terrified of Mali. She was having a hard time staying in the relative same room. "I-I don' know, uh... You could check with de administrator, but um-I don' know, really," she said in her fluty Caribbean accent.

Zane was disappointed but he seemed to be expecting as much. "All right..." He happened to look beseechingly up at Mali, silently asking to "persuade" the bird girl. For a moment she considered it just for fun, then ended up giving him a stern frown: No.

Dejected for show, Zane began walking away, glancing back at the zoo hand like he was a poor street urchin. Mali tapped the back of his head. "Come on, you. We've done enough fooling around for one day."

Finding their way to the exit, Mali received the generic terrified looks from the others that worked there. When the two came through a door into the main waiting room, a crowd of people were around the big world news projection. Mali could smell the fear and suspicion in the crowd. It was so thick, overpowering. Something must have happened.

Too short to see over anyone, Zane looked up at Mali again. "What's going on?"

Mali shook her head, catching up with the news report. "Don't know yet."

A newsman was speaking in a very grave tone, warning all that the next image was disturbing. A field of carnage flashed up, burning and smoldering everywhere. In places it looked as if the concrete had _melted_.

Mali wasn't one for current events. Never had been. But the image in front of her was still pretty grand. The caster continued, "This is the San Francisco site and the one in Tokyo, we've been informed, is much worse. There's still no word as to who caused this devastating terrorist attack yesterday, but it is obvious that both instances were done by the same organization." He began recounting various things about the president and what the government planned to do.

Mali leaned down to her brother. "Looks like San Francisco and Tokyo were bombed yesterday."

He was genuinely surprised and looked afraid.

Mali led him out the front. "Don't worry about it; nothing's gonna happen here," she reassured him. What terrorist would want to bomb Key West?

As the door began to close behind them, Mali caught one last statement. "...unclear if anyone from Weyland-Yutani has survived..."

Stopping on mid-stride, Mali's gaze snapped back to the door. That was Jack's company! Going back inside, she watched the news further and found that both sites were W.Y. owned. Did Jack know about this? she wondered.

She went calmly but worried back outside to where Zane was waiting. She strode with him back to her aircycle faster than ordinary. Pulling out her sat-link, she nearly told it to contact her cousin, but it buzzed with an incoming call. She put it up to her mask. "Yes?"

"Mali?" said a panicked, static voice. Interference wasn't something one heard with sat-links on a regular basis.

"Jack? Is that you?"

Zane looked up at the mention of his father's name.

"Take Zane to my sister's now," he suddenly said.

Mali felt an instant sinking feeling and turned away from Zane. "...Does this have something to do with what happened yesterday morning?" she said quietly but loud enough to get through over the static.

"I can't explain right now, hon, just get Zane and yourself to Louisiana_ right now!_"

"Jack, stop this, you're scaring certain people here. Either tell me what's going on or stop the joke, because this isn't funny." Mali cursed her strong will at the moment. Why couldn't she just take his word for it?

There was a brief silence on the other end and Mali could distinctly hear some yelling in the background. "Yes, it does have to do with what happened yesterday."

Mali's eyes widened. _Oh shit_. "I'll meet you outside the apartment."

"No! You go to my sister's. Don't wait for me, I'll meet you there."

"Damn it, Jack, don't tell me not to come get you," she replied, a shiver running down her back.

"Mali, that's what I'm telling you. Go now!"

Inhaling as evenly as she could, she said, "...Fine. We'll see you there."

The link cut off as the two siblings reached the cycle. Mounting her bike with Zane in front, Mali got off the ground as quick as she could. As they rose above the rooftops, Mali stole a glance at Sunset Key. It didn't look like there was anything wrong from that distance. Angling directly in the way of Louisiana, she said to her brother. "Hang on."

His grip tightened on the bars and she shot away at full speed. Over the wind, Zane shouted, "Mali, are terrorists going to bomb Dad's work?"

"...Jack just said to go to Aunt Deitra's! So we're going to Aunt Deitra's!" she replied.

"Mali, come on, I'm not stupid! I know this has something to do with the news! And I'm also not deaf!" His voice was breaking profusely. He had to be crying under his goggles. Mali couldn't smell him, but he must have been mortified.

All Mali knew is that she wasn't going to stay at Deitra's long.


	8. Chapter 7: Not Alone

_A/N: POVs: Mali, Jack, and Thwei'r'ka. First contact with the Cleanser. O_O XD I haven't really edited this one as much as the others and I may overhaul it. It isn't my favorite (except for the brief Thwei'r'ka perspective.) Most dividers are for perspective changes, just so you all know. XD_

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><p>7. Not Alone<p>

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Jack's sister Deitra hadn't been expecting them. Portly and decidedly more Asian than Jack was, the woman was kind and understanding. But like Mali and Zane, she was also afraid by the recent events. When Zane was out of earshot, Mali conferred to Deitra her plan. The woman didn't like it but she was grateful nevertheless.

Mali went back to her aircycle after only ten minutes of arriving. Zane noticed her leaving. "Where are you going?" he demanded loudly from the front doorway.

Turning back to him, she said, "I'm going to make sure Jack gets here."

He rushed out of the doorway and stood defiantly in front of her. Tears were starting to stream down his face by now. "I'm going with you."

"No, Z." She easily removed him out of her way.

He was beyond upset and he shoved her shoulder when she sat on her bike. He was strong willed, but not as strong as Mali. "That's not fair! He's my dad!"

"He's mine too!" said Mali louder than she intended. "He's the only one I have left."

"Sounds like me too," Zane said pointedly.

Mali leveled her gaze with her brother. "Zane, I need you to stay here. What the hell would Jack think if he found I brought you with, huh? He told me to get you here and you're going to stay here."

He looked so pitiful, his face wet and eyes deep red. He was very reluctant to resign himself to staying away from the action. "Don't die, okay? I don't have any money to pay for a new GenEx sister," he croaked out angrily, completely serious as usual.

She gave him a hug as tightly as she could without hurting him. "I won't, and neither will Dad."

Taking off back to Key West, Mali caught sight of Zane as he stood sadly on the ground below.

As she took the aircycle to maximum speed, she went over what she said. Jack really was the only father she had. Aside from him, Zane was all she had left. She didn't want to tell the boy that for fear of worrying him more.

Mali desperately hoped that this all wasn't some sick joke.

* * *

><p>Cold clouds of fire suppression were on in full force throughout the complex. It was a rudimentary defense at best, but there was no other way to detect the being. All of their scanning equipment had relied on the global database for comparative information.<p>

Jack was in the lower levels of storage, trying to find an industrial heater to blind the alien. He wished they had heat-blocking suits and some form of grenades. They needed to stun the being at all costs. The only alternative was to fight until the death, and they didn't have that kind of fire power.

He shoved a old glass container out of his way in the last corner of the storage room. No heater. He slapped the wall next to him in frustration. It must have been moved. _Just_ when he needed it! He would've given anything for even a pile of firewood. They were so unprepared!

He bolted up the steps to the nearest lift back upstairs. As he ascended, he heard the suppression systems whooshing before he got to his level. Moisture was all over, coating everything in a wet film. Jogging back to the comm. room, he opened the door.

Death greeted him. He almost fell over when the smell of blood assaulted him. And it was everywhere. The room was foggy and everything mechanical was spewing sparks. Jack shakily made his way to the middle of the room, being careful not to step on anyone. He felt nauseated from the massive amount of dead around him. Everyone he worked with and knew was killed. There were slash like wounds over some and stab wounds in others. "God..." he murmured. Had he been up there any longer he would've been among them. Reaching the destroyed consoles, he saw Allen slumped over the shredded metal. His face was frozen in a look of permanent terror. Jack looked away, feeling grief at the loss of his best friend.

He immediately noticed something wrong with the room. Why hadn't the alien strung up the corpses? Or removed any of their heads? In nearly every recorded instance of the species, they would either skin or decapitate their prey. To see all of the dead just massacred was_ very_ wrong.

A very distinct clicking growl came from further away. He stopped walking, trying to see throughout the foggy room. Visibility was limited to two yards.

He didn't move from his spot. Couldn't move. There was nothing he could do. In cold of the room, he felt like his body temperature had dropped to an equal warmth. If only it could...

"Oh, damn!" exclaimed a voice off to Jack's right. It sounded like Kitz.

The doctor didn't say anything or let the man know he was there. The predator was close by and no doubt heard Kitz. How had that man survived?

Kitz took it a step further, knocking over something loudly and calling for anyone left alive. Jack desperately wanted to warn the man to shut the hell up and stay still.

He heard the man leave the room from his quick departing foot steps. Jack waited a few minutes before moving.

Nothing happened.

No sounds of the alien or Kitz.

Remembering the layout of the level, Jack tried to make his way over to the next door. Careful to stay silent, he avoided all bodies and broken debris to a hall not as thick with mist. He didn't doubt if Kitz and himself were the only living people left in the complex.

A hiss next to him caused him to jump and flatten against the wall. He expected the alien but only a malfunctioning suppresser was shooting out sporadically. The blast reminded him of Zane's little stun caps. His eyes widened. The stun-caps! He started making his way down to the apartment.

Entering the last hall to his home, he almost ran into a dark, imposing, and very tall figure in the mist. He couldn't stop himself from falling backward. Impacting with the floor he backed up as fast as possible, holding a hand out in surrender. "I'm unarmed!"

"Jack!" said a familiar voice from the dark figure.

The doctor felt a new wave of relief as well as outrage. "Mali?"

Crouching down, she brought him into a strangling hug. "I thought I'd find you dead!"

He could barely speak in her grasp. "You shouldn't be finding me here at all!"

She let him go and looked straight in his eyes with her dark red. "You think I'm going to listen to you when you tell me to leave you in the hands of terrorists?"

"Yes! I did! Where the hell is Zane?" he demanded.

"With Deitra. I'm not completely foolhardy."

"You need to get out of here now," said the scientist as he stood up and headed for his apartment. "Do you realize how incredibly foolish it-"

A scream resounded behind them along with an unmistakable clang of metal. And it sounded like Weismann's scream.

"What was-" Jack covered Mali's mask.

"Quiet," he whispered.

The sound of a body falling came next and from the dimly visible hall cross-roads, a limp hand came into view.

Jack felt Mali stiffen before they ran down the last stretch to the apartment. They safely made it to the door and closed it as quietly as they could behind them. No longer in the mist, the apartment was dark aside from light streaming in from the few small windows.

Jack descended the stairs in a blur and darted to Zane's room, looking for the caps.

"What kind of terrorists are these?" demanded Mali in the doorway. "and what are you looking for? This is Zane's room!"

After looking fully under his son's messy bed, he started overturning the whole bedroom. "Where does he keep those stun capsules?"

"He took them with him."

Jack stopped his mad search. "What?"

"We went hunting this morning and he took them with. What makes you think they would be an even weapon against these people?" she replied, her dreads flying as she gestured back to the door.

Jack looked back at her but before he could reply, they heard a soft creak up the stairs followed by a deep throated growl.

Jack moved to the adjacent closet, careful to take as little steps as possible and beckoned Mali to join him. She was facing the stairs, ignoring him.

"Mali," he hissed. She didn't move. "Mali'dekna!"

* * *

><p>That growl...<p>

What was going on? Was there an anti-purebred GenEx terrorism group here? She'd never heard another living creature make the exact same sound she did. Coming out of her daze, she joined Jack in the dim closet under the stairs. She barely fit but comfort was the least on her mind as the door closed.

Measured footsteps came down the stairs, almost too soft to hear. Mali was bent down next to Jack's ear and breathed a statement. "Please tell me who's following us."

He put a finger up to his mouth and they listened again. The footsteps had reached the floor and stopped. There was some slight clicking. She'd never heard of a GenEx terrorist, but there was always a first.

A few seconds later, the steps went to the opposite part of the house, fading beyond Mali's range of hearing. She looked insistently at Jack.

Only able to look at her with one eye, Jack whispered, "There's a lot that you don't know, Mali."

_Well, that's obvious_, she thought. He took a deep breath and let it out as slow as possible. "The first thing you should know is that the being in the other room is not a terrorist. Or a GenEx. I can tell you without a doubt that it isn't from this world."

Mali frowned at her cousin. He couldn't be serious. He was talking about aliens. "Jack, are you sure you're not just shaken up from all of this?"

He made the same pained face he did when he told her she couldn't go to Io. "We monitored its path into the solar system up until it entered Earth's atmosphere yesterday. It's been destroying all of W.Y.'s bases consistently for the past day and a half. This is one of only two bases left."

Not wanting to believe him, she was starting to become convinced. "...Why?"

"It's getting rid of the evidence that one of its kind's ships crash landed here 89 years ago. They're hell-bent on preventing humans from getting their technology. It was only a matter of time before one of them came back for it."

"Why doesn't he just ask for it back? Why kill everyone?" Mali asked.

"Because to them, humans are prey. They hunt mankind for sport."

She felt a new wave of fear. No wonder Jack had been trying to find Zane's stuncaps. He was doing anything he could to stop it. "We've got to get out of here," she breathed.

"There's one more thing, Mali," he said, a very serious tone to his voice.

She looked at him, waiting for him to continue. "What?"

He closed his eyes briefly and began to speak. But a sharp snarling cut him off. It was so close.

Mali's heart rate jumped up a few hundred beats, hoping against hope that the alien wouldn't open the door.

It never did. The footsteps moved away again, deeper into the back of the house. Mali reached for the door release and it slid open. It was a stupid move, but she felt an overwhelming need to get out of the house. She peaked an eye out, looking up and down the empty hall. She pointed to the front door, getting ready to make a mad run for it. Jack shook his head.

Mali wasn't about to wait to be killed. She nodded back and started counting to three on her fingers. On three, she dragged him with and attempted to kick the door down. She fell backward hard on the floor, actually knocking the wind out of herself. She saw that the door was was fused shut.

A foreign, horrendous roar sounded behind them. Mali scrambled to her feet looking all over for some type of weapon, finding nothing. She shielded her cousin behind her, steeping her resolve to live and protect the only family she had.

There were footsteps coming closer but Mali couldn't see anything. The deep familiar clicking resounded in the small apartment. She still couldn't see it.

The air in front of her spontaneously materialized into their stalker. She ended up looking at the creature's chest... then its metallic jaw line... and finally into its black soulless eyes. It was a full six inches taller than her. For the first time in her memory, Mali felt intimidated, horrified at the terrible being in front of her. She could barely breathe in the face of such a foreboding presence.

It held a ten foot jagged, blood stained blade at his side...

* * *

><p>Thwei'r'ka was beside himself. The bone-thin female was not what he'd expected to have between him and his second to last target. Thwei'r'ka got out of his attack stance.<p>

The female raised her hands out in front of her even though he was clearly backing down for the time being. He thought she may've been a huntress, but once he got a better look at her, he knew that wasn't so. She was dressed in the native attire. Everything about her shouted iOoman/i.

The Cleanser blinked behind his helmet. He couldn't see her mandibles behind the small breathing apparatus, but her posture said it all. She was protecting the target behind her.

Overcoming his initial shock, Thwei'r'ka tried to step around her but she blocked him. "I have to dispose of this Ooman," he said woodenly. He didn't know what else to tell her. He had a job and she was in the way.

She didn't understand a word of what he said, launching into a loud and angry assault of Ooman phrases that Thwei'r'ka didn't even have time to translate. She was absolutely hysterical.

Shortening his bladed spear, the Cleanser reattached it to his back holder. He held his hand up in a gesture for her to calm down. "You are not my target," he enunciated.

The removal of his spear seemed to ease her mind but her body language was defensive all the same. Trying one last gesture of good will, he began removing his mask's oxygen hoses.

* * *

><p>Mali couldn't figure or why the killing machine hadn't run her through yet. When it being began removing its mask, she expected to find an unimaginable face. But she was further shocked when she was met with a near mirror of her own visage. Thicker in build, the alien no longer seemed so different.<p>

Everything was coming together in her mind. It all made sense. It wouldn't attack her because she was one of the same race.


	9. Chapter 8: Inhuman

_A/N: POV-Thwei'r'ka, Mali, and Zane. A loss and pity. Sorry this one is sort. I clipped the end of it because I've been having a writer's block on how Zane will say goodbye to Mali. ^^'_

* * *

><p>8. Inhuman<p>

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Both aliens regarded each other for a few moments, neither knowing what to think.

Thwei'r'ka was grateful that she had calmed down. Maybe now she could be reasoned with. He shifted his weight, trying to look around her. She still wouldn't give him any leeway.

An expulsion of energy whizzed past out of nowhere. For a split second, Thwei'r'ka thought it unintentionally came from him, but he didn't even have a plasma weapon. The blast impacted on the Ooman behind the female, just barely out in the open from her blocking Thwei'r'ka. The female cried out in anguish when the small being crumpled to the floor.

Whipping his gaze to look for the genesis of the blast, the Cleanser saw a shaking Ooman behind him, holding a miniature handheld version of a plasma gun. Thwei'r'ka identified him as his other last target of the facility. Beginning to advance on the hairless Ooman, he took his rusted spear back out and extended the blade.

The man was barely staying on his feet as he dropped the plasma weapon. Thwei'r'ka caught words of penitence and he thought he heard a couple "unarmed" claims.

The Yaut'ja ignored the pleas and sliced the Ooman's midsection. Thwei'r'ka proceeded to destroy the plasma weapon as well, shifting his spear and releasing an acidic compound to erase the evidence. Oomans were good at mimicry, but not at originality.

He reattached his mask, feeling the need to breath clean air again, then glanced back at the female. She held the limp, very dead man to her chest, wailing an eerie mimic of Ooman crying.

The piteous scene made Thwei'r'ka feel sorry for her. He wanted to tell her this was what happened when one became too attached to prey, but he sensed something was incredibly different about her. She didn't even act like a sentient species' rights activist. It was as if she weren't Yaut'ja at all. Maybe she was a slave of some sort. But Thwei'r'ka couldn't imagine such a weak minded female. He was accustomed to them being strong figures of authority...

He needed to go about the last part of his job, yet couldn't pull his gaze from her.

"Aw, pauk," he muttered under his breath. He couldn't simply leave her there. No, he had to be _touched_ by the display. He reminded himself that he was not going to let himself be a soft-meat and turned to leave.

* * *

><p>Mali felt as if she were going to burst. She wished she could cry. <em>Really<em> cry; but she couldn't. All she could do was wail her heart out. Jack had died right next to her instantly. The damn alien had just shifted. He wasn't trying to make an advance, but she had to be too paranoid. He had clearly backed down.

WHY did she move? Why couldn't have she taken the shot?

She held her bloody father figure tightly, as if she could just squeeze the life back into him. The one person in the world who understood her. The one person she looked up to. Gone. She whined his name as if he would hear, shivering.

She noticed that the big alien that had spared hers and Jack's life began to leave. Suddenly she felt as if he were her last hope. The last person...or thing that may have a reason for her to live. Lifting the blood soaked body of her cousin up, she yelled after the alien, "Hey!"

He looked back at her, nothing threatening about his movements.

Mali was surprised her voice didn't break after wailing so hard. But suddenly she didn't know what in the damn world to say to him. _"What about me?" "Take me with you" "I don't have anywhere else to go?_" She'd sound idiotic and weak. But he'd listened to her before... And she'd already broken down in front of him. It was worth a shot to say something.

"Don't you leave me here," she said with as much force and determination as she could.

The big predator hesitated, leaning towards the door yet never taking his gaze of of her. He obviously wasn't thrilled about taking her with.

Mali couldn't believe she'd said that. What was she thinking? He was damned hunter of humans! She grimaced inwardly with a pang of realization. She was no longer human. Steeling her resolve, she waited for the alien to react.

* * *

><p>Zane sat on the porch of his aunt's house that evening, arms wrapped around his knees. They were dead. He just knew it. He needed to figure out how he was going to survive without them. With that thought, the twelve year old broke down crying again, shoving his face into his arms. Who was he kidding? He couldn't live without them. No way! His dad was the smartest man ever and Zane was positive he could always have him around to count on. And Mali-she was the coolest sister Zane could've asked for. She had been there since before he was born, acting almost as a mother. She payed attention to him like no other teenager did and seemed to know everything. What on earth was he going to do without the both of them?<p>

He wiped his eyes free of tears roughly. He had to be tough. He was thinking the worst. Mali would survive. So would Dad, especially since she was there.

Behind him he heard a commotion inside. Zane glanced back, seeing no one in his aunt's open kitchen. iShe probably dropped something again,/i he concluded.

But then he heard his uncle Mark's name being called by a very frantic Deitra. Zane vaguely wondered what was going on as Mark ran to Deitra's voice in the other room.

Curiosity and a need for a diversion persuaded Zane to check out the commotion. Padding over to where Mark ran, the boy pressed his ear over the closed door.

"Are you sure?...How did it... Oh God," said Deitra, her voice watery as she started sobbing. There was a news projection playing in the background that he couldn't make out. Zane then heard a thud on the floor and louder crying.

Zane's eyes widened. He manually slid the old fashion door open and saw his aunt holding her sat-link. Mark was kneeling next to her, trying to console her. The projection off to their left was showing another news caster from a hovercraft. They were high above a fresh explosion site on a small island and Zane instantly knew where it was.

Mark noticed Zane behind him and stood up from his wife. "Go on, kid, this isn't a good time."

"Who's Deitra on the phone with?" Zane said louder than he meant.

"I said not now!" Mark started herding Zane out.

Deitra recovered her voice and turned toward them. "Mark, it's fine. It's his father; he has a rite to know."

Mark stopped herding Zane out and the boy came over to Deitra. "...My dad is dead, isn't he?"

The puffy faced woman still held the sat-link to her ear, tears streaming freely down her face. With her free hand, she put it on Zane's shoulder. "Yes, sweetie."

Zane felt his nose stinging with a onslaught of tears he knew were coming all over again. "Were did they find him?" he asked quietly.

"Key West General. I'm," she swallowed with some difficulty and put her hand under her nose. "I'm on link with the doctor who examined him."

His eyes clouding over, Zane sniffed hard. "And my sister?"

"They don't know where she is."

"Wha...what do you mean they don't know where she is? She's not that hard to find," he said, his voice fluctuating. He snatched the sat-link. "Where was the GenEx you found with glowing blood?"

"I-I'm sorry?" said the man on the other end.

"My sister! She's a seven feet tall GenEx with dreadlocks."

"Son, believe me I would've remembered if a GenEx came through here. I apologi-"

"Don't say that! She wouldn't leave my dad! She has to be somewhere! What about the people who found my dad? They had to see her!" Zane was almost shrill at this point. Mark pulled the sat-link out of his hand and bodily picked Zane up away from Deitra.

Zane squirmed in Mark's arms, unable to take his grief. "They didn't find her! Maybe she's not dead!"


End file.
